Scorsese's 'Island' of Insanity

by Brett Parker

Martin Scorsese is a master filmmaker who shows, among other brilliant things, the delusions people construct for their lives to combat realities of the harsh real world. Think of the undercover moles’ deceptions in The Departed, Travis Bickle’s bloody need for redemption in Taxi Driver, Rupert Pupkin’s fever dreams of stardom in The King of Comedy, or Henry Hill’s outlaw lifestyle in Goodfellas. The ideals of a Scorsese protagonist can take on a wild reality of their own, in constant threat from the morals and formalities of normal society.

Shutter Island could very well be Scorsese’s most deranged and unsettling exploration of this theme, and that’s saying something for the guy who made Taxi Driver. For all the things he has presented throughout his legendary career, this is his first plunge into classical macabre (although his Cape Fear remake held tinges of it). The result is a deliciously startling display of his most burning obsessions. Even when the film’s third act takes a shocking turn towards an old-school horror story gimmick, his masterful evocation of his themes blasts away any doubts towards the material.

The time is 1954 and two U.S. Marshalls are assigned to investigate the disappearance of a mental patient on a hospital off the coast of Massachusetts called Shutter Island. Teddy (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a seasoned detective with a troubled past while Carl (Mark Ruffalo) is his straight-faced rookie partner. After a fog-ridden ferry ride, the duo arrives at the elaborate mental compound and overwhelming feelings of unease quickly strikes them. The head doctor, Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) gives off an unsettling vibe of uneasy as he explains that a female patient escaping such a secure island appears highly fishy. Of course the twitching and unnerving mental patients add no comfort to the situation (one warns Teddy to RUN!)

Stirring up matters further is the fact that Teddy has his own hidden motives for being on the island. He reveals to Carl that the hospital may be harboring the violent lunatic who burned down his apartment complex, killing his beloved wife Dolores (Michelle Williams). Teddy pulled strings to be assigned this case in the hope of confronting his wife’s killer. But soon Teddy is suffering hallucinations within this island of insanity, haunted by visions of his wife and horrific memories from his tour in World War II (he helped to liberate a Nazi death camp). Teddy develops a hard time separating fantasy from reality and he begins to feel no different than the other mental patients. What exactly happened in his past? What suppressed memories are fueling his madness? Just what exactly is going on amidst this asylum?

Shutter Island is Scorsese’s whirl through pulp noir and classical horror stories. Adapted from the Dennis Lehane novel, this is a world of fedoras, asylum weirdoes, and living nightmares. Scorsese uses this landscape to explore the clashing between his usual themes of guilt and hostility, all basked in a Hitchcockian Technicolor. As his vessel of intensity, Scorsese once again looks to DiCaprio, his new age muse. He physically embodies Scorsese’s suppression of sins, as he furiously and frantically tries to deal with broken memories from his scarred past. This is the familiar Scorsese protagonist turned up to new levels of insanity. Also turned up intensely in the director’s eye for hostile environments. Not only do we trudge through murder, war, and psychopaths, but we see the shockingly unorthodox ways in which doctors try to fend off borderline-torturous forms of psychotherapy.

Scorsese plays with ideals of delusions not just with the asylum world but with the era of the story itself. If Shutter Island is trying to put up a healthy front while disturbance festers among the facility underneath it all, then perhaps post-WWII America suffered the same problem. The film employs nightmarish surrealism to show how certain characters are dogged by post-war disillusionment and post-traumatic stress disorder. One character, specifically, goes to horrifying lengths to bury the tragic realities of his world.

This film has an explosion of a twist ending; a mind-bender that forces you to reexamine everything that has gone before. This ending brings suspension of disbelief to the red zone and flirts with the preposterous. Some might find it too much of an asylum-story cliché. With any other filmmaker, this plotting might feel cheap, but Scorsese pumps it with such cinematic force and personal resonance that it feels more masterful than it probably deserves to be. I’ve seen the film twice now and I’ve noticed the impressive ways Scorsese and screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis (Alexander) conceal the secrets with great suspense, all while small evidence of them stare us straight in the face. The twist adds such a heated intensity under Scorsese’s themes that any holes that could very well be present in the plot go strongly overlooked.

You can see the ways Shutter Island could’ve simply been a haunted horror story; a pulp gimmick of cheap thrills. Yet watching Scorsese employ his sublime expertise into such material is exciting beyond belief. The film is a startling historical account like Gangs of New York while also displaying societal criticism like Taxi Driver. Any director can evoke things that go bump in the night, but when a filmmaker like Scorsese roots those bumps in the scariest recesses of the human mind, the result is guaranteed to shake you.

The Top 10 Movies of 2009

by Brett Parker

As I look over my inevitable list for the Top 10 Movies of 2009, I couldn't help but notice that a romantic comedy, a Star Trek movie, and a Judd Apatow comedy dominate the top of it. This could seem very unusual in any other year, but it comes across as strangely appropriate for 2009, a year of overwhelming pop comforts. At a time when the country is still trying to pull itself out of grueling struggles, it made sense that most of our big screen entertainment was edible pop nourishment; movies that played creatively on generic comforts to lure us back into theaters. And why not? In its elemental form, movies are meant to present dazzling distractions from our personal problems and the mundane tendencies of the everyday world.

While heavy indulgence in commercial comforts can often be a rather unsettling thing, the works of 2009 managed to add delightful jolts to the cinematic universe. James Cameron's Avatar not only re-imagined and rejuvenated the thrill of 3-D movies, but altered long-discussed concerns over theater attendance by becoming the highest-grossing film of all time. It seems that award shows also played off of comfort food to razzle things up: The Hangover won best picture (comedy/musical) at the Golden Globes while hit crowd pleasers like The Blind Side, District 9, and Up nabbed Best Picture nominees in the Oscar's transparent “ten-nominee” expansion. It's obvious these awards shows are desperate for higher ratings, so they're taking a cue from Hollywood's current rake of appealing commercialism.

I don't feel 2009's cockeyed pop drunkenness, however, calls for great concern or controversy. I had a notably wonderful time at the movies this year. These waves of pleasantness were extremely alluring and made narrowing my favorites down to 10 choices exceedingly difficult. I adored my personal favorites like a wild lover and I want to shine an obsessively romanticized light on just about all of them. If you haven't seen any of the following 10 films, then seek them out immediately and hug me later:

1) (500) Days of Summer

The best movie on the subject of breaking-up I’ve ever seen. First time director Marc Webb has crafted a superior romantic comedy that is not only brutally honest and uncompromising, but has a zestful and playful spirit. It’s a vivid relationship movie that also employs a wildly creative visual style. Stars Joseph-Gordon Levitt and Zoey Deschanel wonderfully create distinct personalities that evoke great sympathy from us. We can greatly see ourselves and the people we’ve dated in their performances. For a film to be an achingly realistic portrait of breaking-up that manages to sneak a bright-eyed optimism into the material is some kind of wonderful. This film is quite simply an accumulation of everything I’ve ever wanted to see in a romantic comedy.

2) Star Trek

Even though my original review nitpicked at its flaws, the new Star Trek reboot kept luring me back to the theater for repeat viewings and proved to me that it’s an undeniable rush of exciting adventure. It wonderfully employs a hip sci-fi rhythm that honors the celebrated traditions of the franchise while jazzing things up for a new generation. Avatar may have the more impressive effects, but Star Trek has more appealing, heart-felt characters. Chris Pine is the epitome of cool in his portrayal of Captain Kirk and Zachary Quinto impresses with the emotional depths he reveals in Spock. This Star Trek is the best-looking, best-acted, most compelling, and coolest film in the franchise’s history. There is no denying the appeal, the energy, and the heart of this intergalactic thrill machine.

3) Funny People

Perhaps the most revealing film ever made about the inner-workings of the comedy trade. Funny People is fascinating in the way it lets us into the world of stand-up comedians, showing us how they compete with each other, infiltrate the varying aspects of show business, and use their humor to combat their deepest inadequacies. Director Judd Apatow gravitates away from being an exceptional comic director and towards an artist of humanism as he unearths complex and unsettling depths from star Adam Sandler, giving one of his best performances as a narcissistic comedy star. Sandler’s performance, like the film itself, knows how to make you laugh hysterically and shake you deeply at the same time.

4) Public Enemies

Michael Mann once again proves that he's a master of action drama with this unsettling and mysterious meditation on legendary crime figure, John Dillinger. In telling the story of the infamous prohibition-era bank robber, Mann highlights the underlying poignancy and emotional ambiguities present in his myth, once again denying audiences typical pop theatrics and asking them to examine the true depths of crime and its players. The great Johnny Depp plays up his roguish charms and rebellious spirit to lure us into his portrayal of Dillinger, yet he never flinches away from the man's cold and dark nature. Both Mann and Depp employ expert talent in unearthing troubled depths within criminal archetypes we never fully sensed was there.

5) An Education

When it comes to coming-of-age tales regarding young women, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more intelligent, exuberant, and entertaining tale than An Education. The film is a romantic celebration of life, a portrait of London on the brink of the swingin' sixties, and a thoughtful meditation on femininity all at once. Carrey Mulligan pours such radiant loveliness and glowing independence into her role that she has certainly earned comparisons with Audrey Hepburn. And while the American Peter Sarsgaard is probably the last person you'd think of to play a swingin' British hipster, he nails his role with astonishing conviction. An older man courting a younger girl may sound like a creepy and cynical concept, but the wonderful script by the great Nick Hornby brings out the wild romanticism and biting wit in this stylish and joyful story.

6) A Single Man

Fashion Designer Tom Ford makes an impressive effort with his debut film; an intriguing work that examines heartbreaking loss, unspeakable suppression, and the sly ways beauty and hope can sneak into our everyday world. Ford labors for sublime visual beauty in showing us the universe of George, a gay college professor trying to conceal his deep emotional wounds sustained after the death of his longtime lover. At the centerpiece of this hypnotic jewel is a fantastic performance from Colin Firth, one I wish wins him the Oscar for Best Actor. A Single Man is that rare film that knows how to endlessly dazzle your eyes while constantly jabbing at your heart.

7) The Box

Richard Kelly further proves that he is one of the most complex and enigmatic of filmmakers by once again presenting audiences with a mind-bending cinematic puzzle with no easy answers. Things start off simple enough: a financially-strapped married couple will be awarded a large cash reward if they push a simple button...but someone they've never met, somewhere in the world, will die. From there, Kelly casts off into his existential and trippy depths that examines conflicted people trapped between ominous doom and startling spiritual realizations in a supernatural purgatory. Audiences were baffled by this heavy-duty horror piece, but students of Donnie Darko and Southland Tales know that Kelly presents alluring challenges for the most intelligent of moviegoers that cannot be taken at face value. The Box is no exception; it's a tense and dizzying work of mystery that enticingly invites repeat viewings.

8) Up in the Air

Jason Reitman has crafted a masterful dramedy that is extremely of-the-moment yet has timeless ideals that will be strongly felt by future generations. In telling the story of a traveling corporate man who fires people for a living, Reitman explores hard truths and anxieties about the Great Recession we're currently in; illuminating employee lay-offs and technological detachment. The casting of George Clooney in the lead role also provides a hard-looking deconstruction of his star image; that of a care-free hedonist blind-sided by matters of the human heart. What is so touching, and sometimes bittersweet, about Up in the Air is its realization that the love and emotions deep within our souls will still thrive on even in the most detached and crumbling of societies.

9) The Brothers Bloom

Rian Johnson presents us with a quirky con caper that has the bouncy energy of a childrens tale and the yearning emotions of an adult melodrama. It's a con game where the bruised hearts of the con artists are given more attention than their strategies, proving more touching than you'd initially expect. Johnson, like his last outing Brick, dishes out old school charms packed with a colorful and playful elegance. With exotic locations, gorgeous fashions, and an absorbing folk-rock vibe, The Brothers Bloom is a whimsical romp way too pleasing to ignore.

10) Broken Embraces

Pedro Almodovar has always shown a masterful taste for both passionate melodrama and brilliantly complex self-reflexivity. Here he fuses the two into the same playful and illuminating ideal and the result is a spellbinder that ranks among his very best. By observing a beautiful cinematic starlet (played wonderfully by Penelope Cruz), Almodovar shows us how a love for a woman can strongly resemble a love for cinema. Both can inspire wild passion, crushing heartbreak, treasured memories, and gut-wrenching truths. Using his vibrant camera and lush colorings, Almodovar highlights with great cleverness how the formalities of cinema and passionate relationships can be driven by the exact same matters of the heart.

Honorable Mentions:
Avatar
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Paranormal Activity
Two Lovers
Tyson
Sherlock Holmes

A Cheesy 'Wolfman' Worth Watching

by Brett Parker

The lights from the full moon cast an alluring and ominous glow on the shadowy forests of the Earth below. An increasingly-frightened villager shines the puny light from his lamp into the blinding darkness surrounding him as he stumbles his way through a forest. A bloodthirsty beast with long and lethal claws stalks this prey throughout the trees and taunts him with a terrifying growl that would be commonplace in hell.

I love this stuff. If I had to pick my all-time favorite movie monster, it would probably be the Wolfman. Through this hairy beast, we can see an intriguing symbol for the uninhibited and untamable recesses of the human soul. The idea of a mild-mannered man transforming into a rampaging and merciless monster invites Freudian ideas of repressed feelings and untapped urges allowed to run wild in a zestfully violent release. This beast could represent sexual urges, repressed anxiety, buried anger, nearly anything from the psychology books. The Wolfman represents pop release therapy of the goofiest kind.

Director Joe Johnston (Jumanji, Jurassic Park III, Hidalgo) brings us an update of The Wolfman that doesn’t really update that much at all. The new version is a rather straight-forward remake of the original, keeping the period setting and plot intact in its old school simplicity. Cinematographer Shelly Johnson (The Last Castle) brings the film a delicious horror glow while Production Designer Rick Heinrichs (Planet of the Apes, Hulk) brings a fun gothic tinge to the surroundings, yet Johnston lets us down in not unearthing a substantial point of view on this seemingly-rich horror premise. Everything is played for a simple spook show. On that level, it’s competently entertaining, but so much more could’ve been drawn from this material.

The film takes place in Victorian-Era England in the small hamlet of Blackmoor(which is just as well; it might’ve been straining to see the Wolf Man push off of the present day. Military and Computer technology might’ve diminished the plot’s fun). A nobleman named Ben Talbot (Simon Merrells) is viciously mauled and murdered by what can only be concluded as a giant beast of some sort. This sudden death prompts the return of Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro), Ben’s stage actor brother who has been estranged from the family for many years. Lawrence experienced a traumatic childhood at the hands of his wickedly mysterious father, Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins) and still carries emotional scars from a horrifically traumatic past. Still, Lawrence promises Ben’s beautiful fiancé, Gwen (Emily Blunt) that he’ll solve his brother’s murder.

Lawrence’s investigation leads him into the local woods one night and he is horrified to discover an other-worldly beast galloping through the night. The creature violently attacks a band of gypsies before sinking its fangs into Lawrence’s neck. Lawrence survives the attack but feels that his body is changing in alarming ways. His suspicions turn out to be correct, for when the full moon occurs, Lawrence turns into a hostile werewolf that storms the landscape, causing death and destruction at every turn. As Lawrence tries to wrestle with his newfound mutation, he shockingly discovers that his werewolf curse just may have strong ties to tragic events throughout his family history.

On its elemental level, The Wolfman is packed with old school charms that can surely swoon horror enthusiasts on a ridiculously low level. The creature himself is certainly impressive in his rampaging endeavors and I applaud legendary Make-Up Artist Rick Baker for keeping the design of the Werewolf fairly close to the original Lon Chaney, JR. look. The Wolfman’s exploits are not staged for haunting scares or brooding tension, but to provide jabs of gore that supplies moviegoers with cheap thrills. Indeed, audiences are sure to cheer with laughter and mad awe as the Werewolf rips out intestines and decapitates his victims. It’s disappointing that Johnston has no ambition of horrifying audiences or framing scenes for strategic scares. It’s all a straight-up gore fest, laboring for what must curiously be intentional laughs.

When one reflects on the excessive hairiness he’s sprouted for roles in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Sin City, and Che, Benicio Del Toro seems like a perfect match to play the legendary demonic furball (Del Toro is reportedly a big collector of Wolfman memorabilia). His depiction of Lawrence may be a tad too modern, but it feels more acceptable than watching a stiff British actor strain to convey horror anguish. Nonetheless, Del Toro is appropriately moody and haunted in the role. You don’t doubt for one minute that a monster is weighing heavily on his soul. Hopkins and Blunt may be occupying thankless roles they can sleepwalk through, but they are still thankfully engaging. Hopkins brings us a welcomed hamminess while Blunt truly conveys a beauty that could tame even the wildest of wolves.

Even though the Wolfman’s violent rage is meant to represent repressed feelings of a traumatic childhood and dysfunctional family life, Johnston doesn’t really make grand artistic efforts to make the underlying themes feel substantial. The plot comes across too hokey to make that possible. Aside from an effective dream montage based in an insane asylum, the film’s premise is played for cheap thrills while promises of underlying philosophies fester away. Certain moviegoers, like myself, will probably feel robbed of a hard-hitting, significant horror classic. Just imagine if a director like Martin Scorsese got his hands on this material. To merge his ideals of guilt and hostility with the Werewolf myth would catapult this remake into a grand territory far beyond the ghoulish cheesiness Johnston is all too content with.

There are certain horror enthusiasts who celebrate the simple pleasures of the genre so religiously that to elevate them to more philosophical or artistic heights would seem like a huge miscalculation. The cheap thrills and the gore seem to be the point unto itself. Johnston’s Wolfman seems to be made with this same kind of regard and will, alas, please such horror fans. There will be those paying ten dollars to see a giant wolf tearing humans limb from limb, and they certainly won’t be disappointed. However, if you’re one of those moviegoers who question why the Wolfman would want to tear through limbs, they will be left wanting more food for thought.

'Crazy Heart': Country Boozer as Sexy Saint

by Brett Parker

Crazy Heart is like a familiar country song played by a second-rate singer in an unflattering, laid-back rendition. In telling the story of a broken-down country star, we find ourselves in the presence of an all-too recognizable story, one that fails to add any surprising kicks or deep reasoning behind its developments. The plot hits a bunch of standard bases but without fully sensed character development. What the film has is a flawless performance from Jeff Bridges, a performance the screenplay can't support and isn't worthy of. He makes his booze-soaked country figure, Bad Blake, an interesting fellow, he just needs a stronger movie to see him all the way through.

Bad Blake used to be a considerably famous Country star, but problems with the bottle has caused his career to play out in the lower decks. As the film opens, he is driving around the country in a creaky truck, appearing for gigs at shabby bars and bowling alleys. Armed with a scruffy beard and a pot belly, Blake goes through the motions in a half-drunken daze. He still puts his heart into his stage performances, but other than that he's a numb soul playing for any run down venue that will have him. Anything to pay for the booze.

The film follows Blake at a point in his later life when things appear to be turning around for him. He wins the heart of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a single-mother-journalist who falls pretty hard for him and is touched by how much he gets along with her son (Jack Nation). He also becomes sought out by Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), a country superstar who used to play in Blake's band. Sweet offers Blake not only the chance to open for one of his concerts but to write songs for him as well. Blake has finally been given a path to redemption, but he is hopelessly hooked on the bottle. Can he break his old patterns and enjoy his new gifts from fate?

You don't really know how to feel about Crazy Heart because it seems the filmmakers are unsure about how they feel about Blake. The wonderful Bridges is certainly game for anything, but the filmmakers don't really give him anywhere to go. This kind of story demands that Blake be a melancholy train-wreck, yet the film goes to painstaking lengths to paint him as sweet and likeable. They seem hesitant in showing his deeper flaws, so Blake comes across more like a sluggish oaf than a tragic figure. There's less drama to be held that way.

Take, for example, last year's The Wrestler, whose structure Crazy Heart's slightly reminded me of. Both films follow washed-up performers in the lower ranks of their profession while haunted deeply by their mistakes in life. Darren Aronofsky's directing and Mickey Rourke's performance were bruising and uncompromising in showing every minute detail that caused their protagonist to end up in spiritual and professional anguish. Even though the wrestling hero was a likeable fellow, the camera never flinched in showing us every wrong step he'd made and we felt every ounce of his bitter regrets and weary spirit. The Wrestler made us feel we were looking into the heart-wrenching depths of a tragic figure. Crazy Heart makes us feel as if we're looking at a lazy frat boy in post-college life.

Part of the problem is that none of the characters are willing to tell brutal truths to Blake's face. Blake is surrounded by a chorus line of astonishingly sweet and encouraging people and no one barely attempts to dish out the harsh criticisms he desperately needs to hear. His buddy Wayne (Robert Duvall, reminding us of Tender Mercies) has nothing but wonderful things to say about him even though its clear there's nothing wonderful going on in his life. Colin Farrell plays Tommy Sweet with such moody detachment and cold stiffness that nothing substantial comes out of his fragile friendship with Blake. And now let's look at Jean; she falls for Blake point blank and barely says anything about his flaws or lifestyle. Most of the movie is devoted to their tender courtship, but we can't figure out what kind of juice her heart is running on. The most interesting thing in the script is the fact that a hard-working single mother would hook up with an aging, beer-bellied, financially-strapped, alcoholic country singer so easily. By the film's end, when Jean is finally telling Blake what he needs to hear, we wonder what the hell took her so long.

The people around Blake are so accepting of his lifestyle because the filmmakers want to sell the ideal of country star as sex symbol. Despite his apparent flaws, women cling to Blake outright as a sensual beast while men are envious of his apparent mythic stature. If any actor can sell this myth, it's Jeff Bridges, with his easy charm and experienced nuances. Bridges throws a gloves-off zest into the role, throwing his crumbling shagginess and flab out in the open for all to see. With this script, it's easy to see how Blake could've been a self-pitying, melodramatic cliché, but Bridges employs expert subtlety in making Blake feel like a real, lived-in person. That Bridges is able to create such a vivid character in such a transparent script is a testament to his resourcefulness.

Bridges is convincing as a country singer not in the least because he pulls off the film's musical scenes so well. Bridges did his own singing for the role, and his aging voice suits the country tune's well and brings a significant layer of conviction to the role. He's not exactly ready for his own country album, but his voice has that right lived-in country twang, which is exactly what his role demands. I must say that I'm not particularly a fan of country music but I found the music here to be strongly engaging. The film's music was overseen by legendary producer T-Bone Burnett and he brings with him an authentic feel for the tunes that wonderfully hit the emotional bases of the film. I was surprised by how touched I was by the creation and the performance of the film's final tune, “The Weary Kind.”

Despite Bridge's exceptional performance and the surprisingly alluring country tunes, there's nothing really that gripping or fresh about Crazy Heart. It's actually pretty easy to predict the plot's developments as your watching it. It must be said that first time director Scott Cooper avoids a lot of melodramatic pratfalls, but he buys too much into the indie conceit that vivid observations equals great filmmaking. A fully realized script needs to be there first. The camera here is willing to observe a man from the depths, but the failure of the film is that its not willing to follow him all the way to the bottom.

A Ride Through 'Darkness'

by Brett Parker

Edge of Darkness is an appropriately-titled film; the morbid opening shot reveals three dead bodies floating in a river and the ominous tone for the film is set. This one is dark and unsettling from beginning to finish without ever letting up. There’s not a moment’s ease. We’re held in a vice grip by sprits of vicious and unforgiving violence. Even the film’s ending doesn’t resolve everything in a tidy manner, but is disturbing in how much is not truly resolved. This isn’t one of the more significant thrillers you’ll ever see, but it has a creepiness that’s hard to shake.

The film stars Mel Gibson as Tom Craven, a Police Detective who lives by himself in Boston. We see him preparing for the arrival of his only daughter, Emma (Bojana Novakovic), who works for a mysterious corporation in another part of Massachusetts. Despite a loving relationship between the two, they’ve been estranged for some time and Tom is hazy on the details of Emma’s work. He picks her up at the train station and is alarmed to discover that she is showing signs of nausea accompanied with nose bleeds. After they arrive home, a masked assailant appears at their door step and shoots Emma dead with a shotgun.

The assailant makes a clean getaway and Police arrive on the crime scene thinking that Tom was the intended target. Devastated and enraged, Tom isn’t so sure of that and decides to investigate the case for himself. This leads him down a path towards Northmoor, the shadowy corporation Emma worked for. The company puts up a front about an environmental agenda but may really be working on nuclear weaponry for the government. The slimy yet elegant CEO (Danny Huston) assures Tom that they had nothing to do with her death, but it’s soon revealed that Emma may have been part of a conspiracy that involves eco-terrorism, government dealings, and national security cover-ups. Tom receives crucial information about these developments from a shadowy CIA figure (Ray Winstone) with an ambiguous agenda. Tom works relentlessly to expose all of this corruption and avenge Emma’s death, with violent results.

From the film’s early trailers, I expected an action serving in the vain of Taken, a vengeance thriller in which we relish a big name star smacking around villainous sleazeballs in slam-bang ways. The actual result is a patient and precise thriller that goes to pain-staking lengths to develop its characters and stretch out the plot’s inevitable dread. The busy plot hits its clockwork logic at a considerably slow pace, allowing the film’s dark underpinnings to seep into us stronger, holding us in an unlikely grip of tension. I suppose one could pluck contemporary relevance from the government developments, but this is essentially a one-man-revenge-drama that once again employs the ideal that all corporations are shadowy and corrupt, going to satanic lengths to protect their interests. The difference this time is that Northmoor is painted in such convincing and detailed strokes that their villainy feels realistic and it unexpectedly shakes us.

Great credit for this routine story’s unexpected hold goes to director Martin Campbell. Campbell originally directed the British TV miniseries from the 80s in which this film is based upon, yet he doesn’t coil backwards from the technical elegance he has nurtured so well in his Hollywood endeavors since then. His Casino Royale, one of the great James Bond pictures, displayed a wonderful attention to dramatic character depths while delivering expected thriller elements with effective excellence. He brings the same sense of both ideals to Edge of Darkness, almost bringing a Hawksian subtlety to the material. He films in a hushed and simplistic manner, giving the plot’s tragic undercurrents room to grab us.

Edge of Darkness marks Mel Gibson’s return to the big screen after an 8-year-hiatus following the smash hit Signs. Yes, he’s directed some controversial movies since then and yes, he had an embarrassing DUI incident, but that doesn’t really skewer the fact that he’s one of the most durable and compelling leading men we’ve ever had. Very few Hollywood stars possess both a matinee-idol handsomeness and an economy of boiling rage. When Gibson acts, he doesn’t appear to be relying on visible method tactics but is ripping his emotions from a deep anguished place within himself. Think of the fire in his eyes throughout Braveheart and his raging meltdown in The Bounty. Gibson is at his most fascinating when he’s riled up, something that the Craven role inevitably demands. What makes the performance interesting is the way Gibson tries to conceal his character's infinite anger underneath, only slipping it out in startling sprits (there’s a great moment where he tough talks an attorney). Gibson doesn’t shy away from disturbing flourishes, especially when he holds imaginary conversations with his daughter’s ghost. It’s a welcomed return to the big screen for Mad Mel.

While most thrillers try to cancel everything out for a neat ending, what’s most unnerving about Edge of Darkness is how much doesn’t really get cleaned up in the end. The finale is something of a mess, but the mess, in itself, turns out to be the point. Craven essentially wins the battle, but it appears he lost the war. The character receives a degree of vengeance, but our hearts sink when we realize that the evil corporation will thrive on and have its messes cleaned up eventually. The screenplay was shaped with assistance from The Departed’s Academy Award Winning writer, William Monahan, and like that film he also provides a story in which the ultimate catharsis is bloodshed. The script seems to be suggesting here that no matter how hard one tries, the big corporations of the world cannot be faltered by the everyman, and big business will always thrive on. The only real justice is mad brute justice.

Like Michael Mann or Kathryn Bigelow, Martin Campbell has become a master of action thrillers by putting the drama and the characters in the forefront. Our popcorn-movie cravings would’ve probably been satisfied by a Mel Gibson shoot-em-up, but we still appreciate Campbell’s sincere attempts at a thoughtful thriller. I would imagine the film’s length and murky view on current themes may be trying for some moviegoers, but it’s not enough to diminish the film’s cold classiness.